The Linux Opportunity

Two communities important to the open-source world, the ones that make the Ubuntu and Fedora Linux-based operating systems, were ready heading into this quarter to launch the latest versions or updates to their OSes.

Jaunty Jackalope, the code name for Ubuntu 9.04, listed some notable new features, including the Gnome 2.26 desktop environment, faster boot time and what parent organization Canonical says is a focus on making it easier to work between Ubuntu and cloud environments. If the launch goes as planned, with no bugs, it will be significant.

The Fedora community, which has been honchoed by Red Hat, is now beta-testing a significant new release -- one that will include improved font support, improved virtual machine support and help for developers who want to build and test applications for Windows environments right from Fedora 11, without even having to boot into Windows.

To be clear, both the Ubuntu and Fedora communities are talking about nice improvements to both OSes. But don't expect anything jaw-dropping -- unless you're a Windows developer who is tired of paying Microsoft licensing fees.

What has become increasingly clear over the past two years, however, is that communities such as Ubuntu's and Fedora's have made major strides in delivering what many in IT have been seeking almost forever: streamlined, well-supported technology that doesn't force them to reinvent the wheel every time a system upgrade takes place.

In recent months, we've been particularly impressed with advances Linux has made in driver support, networking support and portability. The last major launch of Ubuntu, version 8.10, defeated Windows Vista in performance testing, was a breeze to integrate with wireless card drivers and was so intuitive a kid could sync an iPod to it in less than a minute.

For the solution provider community, Linux has traditionally posed two problems.

Problem No. 1: Driver support and application support were sorely, sorely lacking. We're happy to report that those technical issues, while not entirely eliminated, have been honed over the years to become at least as manageable as any Windows environment.

Problem No. 2: Many VARs have been at a loss as to how to make a living by deploying Linux when the software was free. But take away the prism of a vendor-driven profit model and you can see that it's not the problem some have feared. Linux is distributed under the General Public License. That means VARs can charge for Linux -- Ubuntu, Fedora or any other -- whatever they want.

Keep this in mind as man-hours pile up during the launch of, and migration to, Windows 7.

Linux's presence on the desktop will become more of a factor as 2009 moves along. We're entering a new chapter in the industry -- where less opportunity is controlled by major vendors, and more is controlled by everyone else.